When I found the link to Ning.com, I was intrigued. The company, co-founded by Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreessen, bills itself as a “playground” for building social applications. I immediately applied for an account and requested for beta developer status.
Only beta developers can clone applications. It took me a few days to be given the beta developer account but when I got the e-mail yesterday, I immediately started playing with Ning.com’s services. The first application I cloned was for social networking ala Friendster or FaceBook.
I initially cloned the Bulldogster application to serve as the online storage of profiles of Bisaya Bloggers group members. But I found going through the codes and changing the fields tedious – I was really impatient, I went over the codes for less than five minutes and then gave up. I’d repeatedly miss references to pets or animals in several files. I found that after I’ve set things up – the profile editing field would ask members their breed or favorite park.
I decided to just clone the dating application. The service is now up, it’s at bisayabloggers.ning.com. I’m thinking of cloning the bookmarking application next.
Max is a journalist and blogger based in Cebu. He has written and edited for such publications as The Freeman, The Independent Post, Today, Sun.Star Cebu, Cebu Daily News, Philstar Life, and Rappler.
He is also a mobile app and web developer and co-founded InnoPub Media with his wife Marlen.
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